


A Scholarly Pursuit

by originalPseudonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originalPseudonym/pseuds/originalPseudonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Redglare first discovered the teachings of the Signless, she was terrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Scholarly Pursuit

This book is forbidden, and you know it. You knew it the second you smelled it, the minute you ran your calloused hands over the semi-burnt pages, blackened and worn in their decay. You were eight sweeps, and you were terrified. 

It had his symbol on it, the symbol you’ve heard whispers of in only the seediest of taverns, among the lowest of lowbloods. You have always tried to listen, but you never got anything more than just that – a whisper. Yes, you strained your ears, but despite your blindness they could still sense that someone was listening, someone that wasn’t supposed to be. Lowbloods are good at that, sensing what’s going on around them. They’re much more empathetic to their fellow trolls than highbloods are, you’ve noticed.

So, you never knew much about him. You only had glimpses of knowledge – a growing resistance, a revolt, and finally an end – and even knowing that much information is considered taboo. So when you found his book on one of your first raids as a Neophyte, you slipped it under your overcoat in a fit of something you still can’t name.

You felt it under your coat all the way back home, and the journey took days. The book was warm against you, hot even. By the time you were finally able to take it out without fear of being caught with it, you were nearly surprised to find that it hadn’t seared a hole straight through the flesh of your stomach, as much as you were surprised that your heart hadn’t hammered its way out of your chest.

You read it with no small amount of difficulty. It took months of tracing your fingers over the scrawled Alternian text, and you should’ve felt silly with how close you had to get to smell the words. You wouldn’t have even dared to ask someone to read it to you. Even then you valued your life, as most do.

You were only reading it to know at first – it was a scholarly pursuit. But the more you read, the more you understood. Justice is not defined by the law that you serve under, especially when that law isn’t fair. Justice is fairness. He knew that. He spoke it, before he was silenced.

You wear his sign around your neck, now. It’s cool where the book was warm, but it’s still a weight on your collar bone that at times becomes unbearable. It entails so much, and you feel like a phony every time you cut down a lowblood for defending themselves against someone of a higher caste. But you wear it regardless, and it gives you strength.

Lately you’ve been hearing new whispers, those of revived resistance. The current of the underground river that threatens societal peace had been slowed, but now it steadily picks up speed. This is what comforts you, now. Even though you do little more than trace his symbol while dozing off, the idea that there are people braver than you are, and that they are growing bolder, makes you think that someday things will be fair. 

It makes you think that the Sufferer lives on.

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in a folder deep in my computer. It probably should've stayed there.


End file.
